If for some reason, you ever felt like stabbing someone in the head,
all you'd really have to is convince them to stand under someone's awning just after a major snowstorm.
Icicles are one of the deadliest things in nature I say.

Ramblebox

What the heck is the point of this? I have an intro blurb sitting right there...

L E T T E R S

PSX Games

Dear Googomel?, Castleshng?, Bah... whatever,

I, like many it seems, have been growing increasingly irritated with the
current crop of RPGs available today. After dropping $30 on a used copy
of Suiko III (and promptly re-selling said copy for $30 after 1 go-round),
I threw in the towel. No mas. Fin.

To compensate I've now reverted back (as I often do) to my good ol'
treasures. Played through Ogre Battle, Tactics Ogre, FF I, FF IV, FF VI,
FF Tactics, Chrono Trigger, Lunar I & II and Shining Force I & II. Now
I'm onto FF VII (GoaT on my list). Problem is, I'm runnin' short. I just
purchased Vagrant Story off a nameless auction site, which should tide me
over for a bit, but then I'm lost. I've been looking at the SaGa games.
Good call? Or can you suggest any other PS1 treasures that I may have
overlooked? (Pre-PS1 I've played everything you could POSSILBY mention)
Thankfully Ys will be here soon. If that flops, anyone looking for a used
PS2? Appreciate the advice in advance.

Ciao,

Ian

PS - What happened to the FF Dawn of Souls Contest??? I've been holding
out buying it in the hopes that I win. ~crosses fingers~~

Googleshng

Generally, you want to send mail to webmaster@rpgamer.com when you're wondering what's up with a contest. As for notable PSX games not on your list, let's see, there's Kartia, Vandal Hearts, Vanguard Bandits, Arc the Lad, DW7, Wild ARMs, Parasite Eve, and the SaGa games are spiffy if you don't mind crazy difficulty and a sharp learning curve.

Why is this still being talked about?

Final Fantasy IV does not disrupt the pattern of the list. As I recall....and it's possible I may be wrong about this since it's been ages since I last played Final Fantasy IV....all the characters that "died" ended up coming back to life at the end. So, that somewhat nulifies their original deaths. In other words, I should have included Final Fantasy IV because that only supports the pattern.

I didn't skip any games, either. I'm only considering the "main series" of titles.

And which ones that I mentioned could be refuted? A major playable character died in Final Fantasy V, VII, and IX. No major playable character died in IV, VI, VIII, and X.

an RPGfan

Googleshng

Well, first of all, you are indeed wrong about FF4. The NES games don't fit your pattern either, and the logic that let's you say someone dies in 9 but nobody dies in 10 escapes me. You're pretending 11 doesn't even exist. That only leaves 5-8 here, FF6 has a whopping four characters who join your party and end up dead, not even getting into the whole Shadow thing, so the longest your pattern holds up without question is a 2 game stint, and that's not enough to qualify as a pattern for obvious reasons.

Woodchucks

This isn't a question but.. the Japan-only released third-- or should I say
second?-- game in the Chrono series was called Radical Dreamers, not Magical
Dreamers. Magical Dreamers was the name of Nikki's band in CC.

Umm.. Maybe I should ask a question.. Okay. How much wood does a wood chuck
chuck if a wood chuck would chuck wood?

Googleshng

Well, that depends on a lot of factors you aren't listing. How far does he have to chuck it? How much time does he have? How strong is he? Are we talking logs or pieces of scrap? Oak? Balsa?

Endings

A recent letter talking about Shadow Hearts 2 said there was a good
ending. Without giving any spoilers is there a special way to get this?

Googleshng

If I recall, it's just a question of what answer you give to a question towards the end. Shadow Hearts is the only game in the series that really makes you jump through hoops over these things.

C L O S I N G

Googleshng:

Well, it snowed again yesterday... I'd check how deep it is now if I could reach the ground...